Adopting the Web

My Internet reality is increasingly attached to applications from Google.  Nearly every week a new feature manages to mysteriously finagle a path into my daily routine of organizing, reading, searching, communicating, calculating, traveling, etc.  Most recently, my personal Googlesphere added the ability to use both Google Chat and AIM accounts simultaneously from the same interface.

Even limited feature applications such as Google Docs and Spreadsheets are slowly winning my loyalty.  The shift to both applications - despite obvious inferiority to Microsoft Office and Zoho - is primarily for convenience and collaboration.  The process of composing a document in MS Word, selecting save, uploading the file into an email, creating an appropriate subject heading so the recipient will recognize the message, etc…

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Kudos to Radiohead’s successful experiment in music pricing. Praise to Prince for releasing an album as a free insert in the archaic, decaying newspaper industry. And finally, a high five for 50 Cent who recognizes that “File Sharing Doesn’t Hurt Artists.”

The aftermath of these headlines incited a wave of euphoria among die-hard fans and aspiring musicians worldwide comparable to the British Invasion or Elvis’s first pelvic gyrations on national television. The glory days have returned! Further examination, however, reveals several misleading messages hidden behind the topical glitter coating a DRM-free, file-sharing friendly music industry.

1. 50 cent is a superstar. Tremendous crowds provide tremendous opportunities for profit. During the last half of the 20th century, album sales were the primary…

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